Finding Your Voters

If you are serious about winning, then early, accurate voter targeting is essential. You must know which voters to target whom you believe will, or can be encouraged to, vote for you. Mobilize enough of them so that your winning margin makes recount unnecessary.

Determining the Numbers

Though you will know how many votes you received in the end, you need to estimate how many votes you need per precinct on Election Day. Those numbers represent your targets throughout the campaign which is why you want to work this problem before your campaign launches. Refer to these tips as you do:

Contact Experienced Candidates or Old Hands (those in the know of local politics)

To determine how many votes you need to win, capitalize on the experience of past candidates or those who know the local political situation – old hands. Chances are good that those who ran elections similar to yours and in your area know how many votes you need to win. Ask how they arrived at the figure and if their pre election estimate proved accurate when they ran.

Look at Past Results

Extrapolate vote totals from your data for each election since the last redistricting where a candidate had at least one opponent to determine how candidates from your party or with similar philosophies as your fared in your chosen district.

Factor in Current Political Climate

Turnout determines who wins even in down-ballot races. So if you run in a presidential year or share the ballot with state candidates and ballot initiatives, you are assured that more votes are cast overall. That means somewhat higher down-ballot totals for candidates from your party of with platforms similar to yours (i.e. growth vs. no-growth).

Contacting Voters in on Select Precincts

Collect information on recent contested elections for the office you are seeking by collecting statistics from the last three election years. Exclude any race where a candidate won by a landslide because a unique situation like that often skews data. Perhaps there were ethics problems or a regional issue that woke up low-frequency voters.

To locate precinct maps for the district you are considering a race for, undertake an Internet search titled “voting precinct maps” which should lead you to local elections department websites. Or, simply key in your state, county or city followed by "voting precinct maps." Depending on the sophistication of the local voter registration office (assessor, auditor, elections office and the like), you could find information about local precincts including what electoral districts they are part of as well as street maps.

Which Voter Data Source is best for You?

Many sources exist for obtaining voter data. All will sort to your specifications of district size, complexity, election type (presidential or off year), potential funding, and the like.

Elections Department

If you are running in a very small district, one with a homogeneous population and no more than five precincts, you should still identify potential voters. Look to your local county or regional elections department. If the information is electronically stored, it should be able to be downloaded to you on an Excel file. The larger the district the more information must be managed, so the elections department route might not work if your district has ten plus precincts. But it is often the least expensive source.

In return for the low cost, you receive public data on voters permitted by your state elections code. Contact your state or county elections department to learn what they provide and at what costs. For example, Washington State election law offers a public record: voter’s name, address, date of birth, gender, precinct, and in which of in past elections the person voted in. Breakouts of and costs for voter information varies among states and sometimes among jurisdictions within a state.

States requiring that voters declare party preference include it in the voter’s file as well. Or if your state has open primaries where voters can cast ballots in either primary, voter lists can also show if a voter participated in either primary. But if your state has unified open primaries where all candidates’ names are listed on the ballot regardless of party affiliation, a voter’s participation in the primary means nothing to you since you will not know for which party’s candidate they voted for.

If you work with Excel, or know someone who does, use it to narrow your target list to your needs. At minimum, include all frequent voters, those who voted in your party primary and/or voted in previous elections in your district as well as newly registered and transferred voters. From your chosen data selections you can arrive at a target number of voters to provide the base for campaign budgeting, canvassing, and getting out the vote.

Local Party’s Lists

If you will run as a partisan candidate for a local district office, learn what your local or state political party offers in the way of voter information. You may have to win your party’s nomination party first, but it never hurts to ask early on.

Vendors of Voter Files

Political data firms offer more detail because they increase public voter information with data from secretaries of state as well as with consumer information like phone numbers, driver licenses, hunting and fishing licenses, veteran records, property records, and census data. They also include current mailing addresses from the Postal Service's National Change of Address (NCOA) system. Private vendors also include demographic data like age, date of birth, gender, marital status, lifestyle choice, race or ethnicity, own/rent status, educational level, income, family size, charitable and political donation types, type of business if an owner, as well as email addresses and cell phone numbers.

Political data firms are either nonpartisan or partisan. Not associated with any party, nonpartisan firms provide access to politically unbiased databases. Partisan firms offer voter data developed by a major party, or the firm associates with the Democratic or Republican Party. They augment public elections records with current data gathered by the local party as well as data collected in recent local campaigns.

List vendors typically add these data to voter registrations:

• All local government voter names and any information that comes with the voter name such as address, date of birth, voting frequency and party affiliation

• Voting history including election years, voting history, voting percentage if available.

• Newly registered and voters who have moved to the precinct

• Mailing and residential USPS address standardization

• USPS Delivery Point Validation, to ensure the address is deliverable

• Land line and/or cell phone numbers if available

• All voter names at an address for efficient walk lists and lower mailing costs

• Party affiliation for efficient targeting

• A voter’s gender, age, birth year and age range

• 2010 Census and American Consumer Survey data

• Voters who moved out of the target district or died

• Ethnic surnames

• Income data and consumer preferences

Qualifying Data Vendors

Select a vendor offering accurate, up-to-the-minute data easily deciphered by anyone in your campaign. How well you choose your data determines how well your message gets heard. How well you choose it can make or break you on Election Day.

Ask past candidates in your local area how they made their decisions regarding voter data and get referrals as you decide what best serves your needs. Pay attention to how well a vendor demonstrates how easy it is to use the vendor’s Website to access voter information. Does the vendor offer an app to permit volunteers to easily identify targeted voters provide an easy-to-view mapIs there verifiable local experience? Is there a toll-free help desk 24/7?

(See a subsequent blog post for a list of key voter data vendors.)

The Take Away

The size of your district determines how you go about finding voters to target. Those likely to vote in micro districts with one or two precincts with less than a several thousand voters could get by using county or local elections data. However, you could be well served by using a commercial voter data vendor which would permit you to sort voters by a range of criteria and permit your canvassers to access selected voters on each street via their smart phones. In sum, make finding targeted voters as simple as possible for all involved in your campaign. You will not be sorry on Election Day!